An assistant to Maximilian Krah, an MEP and leader of the German far-right AfD party in the next European elections, has been arrested on charges of espionage for China. The arrest in Dresden of a “German citizen” referred to as “Jian Guo” and defined as “collaborator of a Chinese secret service” was announced by a statement from the German Federal Prosecutor’s Office. After the suspect’s arrest, his houses were searched (he also has a house in Brussels). The AfD said the allegations were “very disturbing”. “Since we have no further information on the case, we must await further investigations by the federal prosecutor’s office,” party spokesman Michael Pfalzgraf said in a statement. Beijing Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin commented that this is an operation aimed at “defaming and repressing” China. “We are aware of the reports and the related campaign,” “the intention of this kind of activity is very obvious and clear and is to defame and suppress China and to destroy the atmosphere of cooperation between China and Europe.”
The reactions
Krah commented on the arrest of his assistant by declaring: “I learned this morning from the press about the arrest of my collaborator Jian Guo. I have no further information. Espionage for a foreign state is a serious accusation. If the accusations were to be revealed true, this would result in the immediate termination of the employment relationship.” Meanwhile, Jian Guo has been suspended from the European Parliament “with immediate effect”.
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What we know
The arrest was carried out yesterday, April 22, specifies the press release from the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, informing that Jian Guo is “attributed to the activity of an agent for a foreign secret service in a particularly serious case”: the man “since 2019 has been working for a German member of the European Parliament. In January 2024, the accused allegedly repeatedly transmitted information about negotiations and decisions in the European Parliament to his secret service agent. Furthermore, he allegedly spied on Chinese opponents in Germany for the secret service. The note announces that the man will be presented to a judge to validate the arrest. Krah (46 years old) who enjoys the support of the extreme wing of the party, has been an MEP since 2019 and according to the German internal secret services is one of the most important exponents of the so-called “New Right”. In the past, Krah had been criticized within his own party for his closeness to China. Recently the leader of the Alternative for Germany (Afd) in the European elections in June had become the object of public attention for having given interviews to the Russian internet platform “Voice of Europe” included in the list of national sanctions by the Czech government.
More arrests
Three Germans, alleged spies for China in Germany, had already been arrested yesterday in Düsseldorf and Bad Homburg: two men and a woman were supposed to collect information on military technology in Germany to transmit it to the Chinese secret service. At the time of the arrests, the defendants were in negotiations over research projects that could be particularly useful for expanding China’s naval power.
